It isn't really about "internet connectivity" or the "adoption of blended learning" or "pass/fail vs numerical grades" or "mass promotion". The core issue(s) here even go beyond medical education. It's essentially teaching and learning during this time... (a thread)

The framing is primarily that "students should learn to become better/stronger/higher/whatever." But no one wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Are the students AND teachers physically, mentally and emotionally able to learn/teach at this time? ...

Arguably, society as a whole - life as we know it - is impacted by this pandemic on an unprecedented scale. Is it really that difficult to pause everything? Tweaking and retrofitting courses is not the answer. The whys, whats and hows of what we learn (and teach) are linked...

Is it really that unreasonable to think not in terms of grades or academic requirements or classes or sessions BUT to let people live and learn through all of this? As teachers and lifelong learners, we can still very much process all of this with empathy and social awareness...

As educators, we do have the burden of addressing all this. But this is at the very least, curriculum level stuff; Call it what you want. Community-oriented, transformative, outcomes-based, etc. The bottom line is our teaching-learning systems have to address what people need...

Given COVID-19, I think (hope) more people are beginning to realize that we've allowed injustice, inequity and indifference to characterize how we live. Thus, like in the other aspects of society, this means a drastic redesign in our educational systems...

We're figuring it out. And it's hard. But why should our learners be unduly burdened as we do so? At the end of the day and as per our self-professed institutional mandates or vision-missions or outcomes, it really boils down to relevance AND compassion in these troubled times.